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so i had always wondered how strymon got their timeline demoes sounding so good.  if you listen to them and have tried playing the timeline through a tube combo amp you know you cant get that kind of detail on your delay repeats.  i did a little research and found they were using those old damage control tube preamps (even for clean tones) direct.  they run the speaker cab out into the delay pedal straight into an audio interface.  this gives your guitar tone some tube warmth and preamp eq along with a speaker cab emulation before it hits say the ice delay.  the advantage is that your octave delays and space reverbs dont get their frequencies chopped off by guitar amp and speaker eq attenuation.    there are also some other great advantages of this kind of setup, i just never thought you would be able to get that great of a guitar sound without a tube amp.  but their demoes are just beautiful.

well i bought the damage vontrol demonizer tube preamp, which does run at like 250v and has some unique eq along with an optical compressor and a speaker cab simulator output.  i plugged it into my headphone amp and was pretty disappointed   the speaker cab emulation doesnt sound much better than straight out.  im getting a very similar sound to plugging in direct like that sound that theres too much high end content and just not fat enough.

does anyone have any experience with running a rig like this?  it would really be the ultimate setup.  all analog preamp and speaker cab attenuatuon, ability to practice with headphones and use a PA live.  im mostly doing looping ambient stuff now so i dont need the balls of a big amp and speaker cab setup.

i am thinking i would be better off with a home built speaker cab simulator.  does anyone have experience with these?  i know theres a popular project on diysb and a vero layout at tagboards but im not sure it will help. 

maybe someone else has a good setup that allows full reproduction of pedal frequencies without going full digital amp modeling?

any ideas would be appreciated!!

So i dont have my shop setup right now.  All my stuff is in storage for a little while.  i had a madbean member get into my total recall and bias it up.  Its now working and it sounds pretty good, but its not quite there.

all voltages are good.... but
There is a good deal more noise than a real deal DMM.  It isnt boxed up yet, but I really didnt think that could make a giant difference on a circuit that isnt high gain.  Maybe?

The guy that biased it said that there was some stuff about changing the values of r10 and r11 for the compander... however, I cannot find anything on the forum about that

He also originally said that I had a noisey compander and he replaced that when biasing the delay, but maybe to try the sa571?

It should be noted that there are now tl072's instead of the 4558's as an attempt to lower noise.  Not something I really wanted to do as I just wanted the OG DMM sound, but it was an attempt.

It sounds like this... there is definite extra noise which kinda reminds me of a pt2399 delay without enough high end filtering.  As the repeats continue and fade out it sounds like the beginning of the attack of the notes (on the repeats) are shaved off a bit.  Like as it continues to repeat the attack of the original note gets cut off.  I know there is some magic to the repeats of an original DMM, and i know what theyre supposed to sound like.  this is subtle but it is different.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I am almost positive there are no cold solder joints.  All caps are correct, resistors could be off but I dont even know where to start on that.  That would be a CHORE!  If anyone has any ideas on resistors that may be the wrong value that would be a great help to start from.

Thanks!!

I finished successfully building a total recall (all voltages are correct and getting delayed signal) but I did not finish biasing it before i had to pack up and move!  Would anyone out there be willing to bias my completed total recall for me?  I can pay cash (over paypal) or send some parts or populated boards- I have a ton of parts including low profile nichicon audio grade electrolytics- lots of pots- including 9mm and board mounted.  Random IC's- a belton module- tons of caps and resistors- just about anything you could want- or just straight cash.  I wont move to a spot where I have shop space for a good 6 months and I'd really like to get this total recall on my board before then!  I've already put so much work into it just being super excited about having a memory man again- i even sold my DOD analog delay already. 

Help a brother out so I dont have to go buy a vintage DMM!

thanks!

and sorry I already posted this question in BUY/SELL/TRADE but I havent gotten a response and figured more people checking this part of the forum may be interested in helping.

Built the total recall, I'm getting some delay but it sounds funky like the first repeat is kinda cut off and the repeats are acting wonky.  like i only get one repeat unless I strum really hard with the feedback up  then i get infinite repeats straight into oscillation.

Spent some time trying to bias it but couldnt make much of a difference.  measured voltages but they all looked pretty good.

the only ones that were a bit off are....

IC2 pin7- is -5.8v instead of -4.7v
IC3 pin 1 is -8v instead of -6.41v
IC4 pins 5,6,7 are reading at -8.3v instead of -7.48v

anything suspicious about those numbers?

Looking for an article on Modern shoe production for guitar amp. It mentioned something about the different brand names and how different brand names are really different they're made by the same manufacturer. Can anyone link me to that article?

I'm about to order parts for a total recall build and I had a few opinions to seek.  I remember back in the day a dude that used to work for EHX was offering repairs and modding of old EHX pedals.  IIRC Part of his mod was replacing the 4558 opamps in the deluxe memory man pedals with something lower noise.  I'm about to order parts for the total recall and was wondering if anyone had an opinion on replacing the relatively noisey opamps in the circuit for some higher grade lower noise stuff?  maybe replacing some of the ceramics with films or polystyrene where important?   going into a build like this, id like to make it as good as absolutely possible.  I might be a fan of quality opamps after using so many of the tayda TL072's and thinking i had found gold when I plugged in something more expensive i had gotten from small bear (those tayda TL072's were garbage for a while, ya know the ones with the almost impossible to read letters on the top?)

thanks1

Is there a way to test the belton bricks?  i have a moodring that is not working and I'm almost certain I had a belton brick that didnt work on another project but I didnt throw away... Almost certain its the brick, anyway to test it?  thanks!

Where are people sourcing their mn3005's these days?  any ebay seller with good results?  people doin the mn3008 route?  any good prices and good sellers of those? (not tryin to pay $20 a pop from smallbear)

I'm trying to upgrade all of the hardware i'm using- started with footswitches and started using lock washers from small bear on my pots and jacks.  Now i'm looking to upgrade some of these crappy knobs- in particular the davies 1900 style knobs from BLMS and tayda are absolutely terrible.

I found some superbly kick ass looking ones here...
http://erthenvar.myshopify.com/products/mini-fluted-knob

but how are smallbears 1900 davies knobs?  as he has the lock washers and id like to save on shipping... but i'm also looking for improvement in mounting the dc jacks (the mini ones and the switched larger ones) with the larger dc jacks (you know the standard ones that are everywhere) i actually have gotten some improved stability using the nylon lock washer from the 3pdt's (i now use the metal washers from BLMS).  Anyone have or know where to source some lock washers for the dc jacks?

I see smallbear also has the compact lumberg jacks for $1.95- are they a good deal cheaper anywhere else?

Thanks a bunch!

***itd be really cool if you guys in the know out there could make this a compilation of bypass options, projects and sources.  I'm sure we all get the pro's and con's now (thats easy to find).  But how about options and whether or not they pop or click, what footswitches, and maybe some troubleshooting for popping bypass schemes that should be pop free

Ive really had a lot of problems with pedals popping very loudly recently.  And I'm sick of it. 

I've been researching, but i'm just getting more confused on the topic.  I was under the impression that relay with soft touch was popless and almost clickless (pop being the big boom sound and click being the actual mechanical sound of the switch getting amplified) but now I've read of some issues with relay bypass popping, and then ive heard that optical bypass gets pops too. 

I'd like to use soft touch as i see those types of switches lasting a long time (maybe not), but of course I guess the parts start adding up.

So where are schematics, PCBs, options available for different bypass systems that are ideally pop free!  and if I do get pops with one of these systems how can we diagnose the source?

Other topics of interest are multi bypass loopers- Id be very interested in doing like the JMK Epic Bypass Looper- if its pop free sign me up- i think itd be so cool to build some pedals that dont even have bypass switches or LED's on them and just use the epic.  But I also noticed it says relay bypass but then uses dpdt switches, cant you just use soft touch momentaries if youre getting into relays and micro controllers?

Other popless multiloop setups for the DIY'er out there? 

Ive also gotta look into multi amp switching and use. Lots of utility work and I'm having trouble finding projects and resources.

I recently fixed my buddies russian muff.  It is a tall font (or bubble font maybe) green russian muff, and it is one of the coolest muffs ive ever heard.  I absolutely love this one with my setup... I NEED to clone it.

Now i'm a firm believer in component compostion selection when it comes to fuzz.  and this one is interesting.

maybe you all can help me out?  Are those metal film resistors with the color bands?  and the green and red ones have the exact value listed on em instead of color coded bands (and they are actually very tight tolerance wise) i've only seen the number labelled on mil spec resistors... the solid

are the caps MLCC?  or what?

and anyone have an idea if the transistors are still sourceable for these muffs?  maybe not... all they say is "E H" on the flat side and they have a little triangle on the corner.

Id like to get as close as possible to this guy so any help or any other tricks would be appreciated.  I read that the guy building the wren and cuff tall font clone said one of the transistors biasing resistors ended up being a different value than on the schematic.

Any known quality schematics and/or experience is appreciated!  I had never played a green russian until the other day and I really cannot stop!!! so much fun!  and ive played and built a LOT of muffs!  who else is a fan?

I have a cheap CSI2010 model digital multimeter.  And I cannot figure out how to test for capacitance using the test leads.  There is a little place on the meter labeled Cx where I can plug in capacitor leads and measure capacitance.  On the four ports where the leads plug in for different modes there is another "Cx" label.  But when I try to measure capacitors with the leads in any position I get nothing. 

Am I missing something here?

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/content/60927/csi2010-0.jpg

^^^link to a picture of the meter I have.  Looking at the manual is just about pointless.

I've found a few threads on this but with no real discussion.  I built the moodring recently and it works and sounds great.  One of the best sounding pedals I've ever played IMO

However,
The white noise i'm dealing with is pretty obscene.  It is pretty hideous with high mix (ring knob) and tone (mood knob) settings.  and this noise occurs exactly the same when its on as when in bypass (i used the non true bypass wiring).  that meaning you can "control" the noise when the pedal is bypassed by making it louder- turning up the ring knob, or making it brighter or darker- turning up the mood knob.  i have messed with the trim pot inside the pedal and it is pretty unbearable with the trim pot turned all the way down.

I could make a demo of this, but first i'd just like to know if this is normal?  The amount of noise is... I said unbearable, but it can be bearable.  However, it is a whole lot louder than the switching between single coil and humbucking positions on my strat.  it actually seems to cover up that hum.  like if I kept the mix below noon it would be perfectly fine, but this isnt the type of pedal that you wanna use subtley.

I used all top of the line components in this pedal.  maybe I have a bad cap somewhere?  this really sucks because I thought this would be an improvement on the EQD ghost echo, which has some typical pt2399 noise with longer delay times (that at least isnt present in the moodring), but it is MUCH noisier than a ghost echo i built.

so first I guess my question is who else has experienced this and is this normal operation?

I built a bacon bits about 2 months ago.  The most magical sounding boost pedal I've ever used.  I didnt understand why people thought boosts were so magical until I built this pedal actually.

I wanted to share that joy with a friend, I let a buddy borrow it.  He returned it to me saying I dont know what happened it just stopped working. 

I opened it up and sure enough R10 is fried to a crisp.   

My first question is what causes this?  Plugging in a higher voltage power supply?  Or one putting out too much current?  Or is that from daisy chaining with the wrong polarity?  I'm asking this because he always seems to have trouble with power supplies, and ive seen him using a lot of those 1 spot "reverse polarity converter"

And what all do I need to replace to get it working now?  Are my opamps likely fried?  diodes?  Any idea where to start besides the burnt up 47ohm resistor?

Thanks a bunch!

I just noticed my sparklehorn build has delay signal bleeding through when the overdrive portion is on and the delay is bypassed.  the mix knob in the delay section effects the sound of the overdrive too.  the delay bleeding through is pretty quiet in volume.  You cant hear it unless the mix knob is at noon or over, but that's through a pretty quiet amp.

Since the circuit is working perfectly besides that I'm wondering where to start.  My wiring is pretty darn neat.  Maybe the 1uf caps in the bypass of the delay?

I posted this in mods originally, but I guess that's a section if you have actual mods for a circuit.  I'm needing some suggestions or experience

I've found that I really only have like 3 filtering sounds on the delay sections "tone" control in the sparklehorn.  All the way clockwise, a millimeter left from full CW, and anywhere else is all unfiltered.  I'd like to get more filtering and greater control over the filtering.  Would messing with the 68n cap work decently enough (any suggested values as the action of the pot is all in the last 95% of the rotation) or am I gonna have to get a reverse log pot and a smaller value?

I am loving the sparklehorn so far but am looking for others experience in a few areas.

Didnt the Timmy use the higher gain 4559 opamp?  Would it be worth ordering one to try this out on this pedal?

The main concern I have is with the delay's tone control.  I love the tone fully clockwise, but all of my sweep is in the last 95%.  It is basically three sounds- fully clockwise filtered- a nanometer backed off from fully clockwise then everything left of that sounds the same and is not my cup of tea.  Is there anything I can do to bump the sweep to get even more filtering when clockwise and have the current clockwise position be somewhere around the middle? 

I'd really like to get a bit more control and more filtering.  i'm guessing c16 is the spot... or maybe a smaller value and or  different taper  pot?

My stage fright is pretty noisey to begin with (anyone disagree with this statement- maybe somethings wrong).  but its way noiseier when I try to daisychain it with one effect... when I use my 1 spot on its own without daisychaining it its a lot quieter... its still noisey but less noisey with an isolated power source. 

Anyone else have this same or differenet experiences to share?

I only have about 10 1uf film caps left and I'm trying to cut down the 5 called for in the sparklehorn.  I suppose I'd like to use the 1uf's in the signal path.  But how about c8 and c9.  Would that make a difference?  Can I just put the ground connected to each of their 100k resistors that go to ground?  Maybe c7?

I know this is cheap but there's another lesson in here for electrolytic orientation which I still dont understand very well at some points.

I just had a toggle from BLMS fail really quickly.  I dont remember where I got these much nicer switches... so where do you all get high quality switches for cheap (toggles and footswitches though Ive never had too many problems with footswitches)